ALVIS ADVENTURES

Isaac Turns Three!

2012-01-13T14:33:00.000+09:00

Isaac has loved trains (which, until recently, he called choo-choo bo-bos) for a while, so we decided on a train birthday. Micah is his best buddy so we had the Zs and two other friends over for dinner and cake.

Isaac requested "macaroni cheese"for his birthday dinner. I'm sure that he would have preferred Kraft, but I just couldn't bring myself to serve that for a birthday dinner, so I made homemade mac 'n' cheese instead.

The cake pan was for a non-Thomas train so I had to make some modifications.

I liked how the face turned out.

The adorable three year old.

Present time!

The party crew.

Happy birthday, sweet boy! Your mommy and daddy are very glad that you are ours!

School Starts!

2011-12-16T15:45:00.001+09:00

After yet another summer agonizing over whether we should homeschool, public school started this fall and all three kids happily went. Sort of. Eli started first on the 29th of August. He was assigned to Mrs. T's class, along with G, his very first friend in our neighborhood. The two of them spent lots of time together the first summer that we were here and then made other friends. Since being reunited in second grade, G comes over several days a week to do homework or play.
This was the meet and greet a couple of days before school started. Mrs. T has an extensive library in her room. Very fun for the kids.

Mrs. T has high standards for the kids, has a kind, generous heart, and does lots of fun activities with the kids. Eli loves Mrs. T's sense of humor. We hear lots of stories about the funny things that she says and does. Mrs. T told us at conferences that she wishes she could clone Eli.

Here's Eli's first day of school. Second grade! Woo-hoo!

Mrs. T's friendly frog room.

The rest of us got a doughnut before we went home.

The students in Eli's class are required to read for at least 20 minutes, six days a week. Eli started reading the Magic Treehouse series and is very proud each time he finishes a "chapter book."

Ali started school a week later. Some of the kindergarten teachers do home visits, so starting a week late gives them a chance to get around to all of the homes. Ms. C and Mrs. R are Ali's teacher and teacher's aide. Ali was delighted to ee them when they came to visit. They were very warm and friendly and went upstairs to admire Ali's bedroom, including the closet where we had shoved the toys that were still lying all over her floor ten minutes before they were due to arrive.

This is Ali going to bed the night before school started. I was afraid that she wouldn't sleep, but she didn't seem to have much trouble.

We have a neighborhood bus, but I took her to school. Jason's papa had died that weekend, so Jason left early that morning to fly to Wisconsin and wasn't able to come with us.

Headed into kindergarten! She walked in as confident as she could be and seemed surprised when Isaac and I followed her in.

Ali loves her jungle themed class room. So far, she has gotten a green banana for her behavior every day. Yellow bananas are for behavior reminders and brown bananas are for rotten days.

Ali was worn out when she got home and fell sound asleep when she went to her room to rest.

You can easily tell how excited Ali is by how much time she spends touching the ground. This video, taken in October, is very typical of Ali while she tells me about her school day. She absolutely loves her teachers and they seem to love her too, giving her nicknames like American Girl doll, tinkerbell, and the current name, crumb.

Isaac started school too. At the beginning of the school year Isaac switched from early developmental intervention services to school age services for his speech/language therapy, so he gets to go to the school twice a week for speech therapy. Every time I tell him that it is a speech day he says, "Yay! Me love speech!" And every time I prompt him with, "I!" and he corrects himself.

August

2011-12-16T13:50:00.000+09:00

Hmmm... Doesn't look like we did a whole lot in August, which is fine because it will help me catch up faster!

The kids drew numbers on their arms and legs and played triathlon after we got home from Jeju. They all won trophies.

In August, Jason and I started a workout program called P90X. We did it faithfully six days a week in August, then dropped the cardio workouts in favor of runs and bike rides and just did the weight workouts for the last two months. The kids wanted to try a workout.

We made a quick trip to Camp Humphrey's Splish 'n' Splash park before it closed for the season.

Ali's turtles with their mom.

Eating popcorn with sweet friends, C and A.

Eli and Ali set up the playroom one afternoon and taught VBS to Isaac and the dolls.

We had great summer PWOC sessions.

My sweet super kids.

We bought a pull-up bar for our P90X workouts. It quickly became Eli's favorite toy. He does pull-ups every day when he gets home from school.

Wait, is this spidey-girl or super-girl?

July

2011-12-16T11:35:00.001+09:00

July flew by, full of swimming lessons, afternoons at the pool (on the couple of sunny days), VBS prep and VBS week and monsoon rains. Here are a few of the highlights.

In two sessions of swim lessons this summer Ali managed to come up with a doggie paddle/upright swim stroke that she can use to travel short distances independently in the pool. The stroke works well enough to propel her from the the bottom of the slide to the edge of the pool, and really, what more do you need?

Eli had good sessions as well and learned the major swim strokes.

I don't think there was a day in July with blue skies. After two days of solid, heavy rain, the Han river flooded its banks. We took a stroll down to river (a little over a mile away) with the Zs to check it out.

Isaac wore these horrible, short rain boots and they rubbed the skin off of his legs in circles on the way there. Ali got a blister on the way. Dawn and I ended up carrying them both all the way home.

This is the underpass that we normally run through to get to the river trail.

We watched the water rise in the five minutes that we stayed down there.

On top of the bridge.

Looking down.

We spent a week at the chapel decorating. I co-directed the Preschool VBS last summer and that was the plan this summer too until my co-director got a job and went to work a week and a half before VBS started. My good friend, L, who was already planning to help, stepped up and we got it done. L was due to have a baby the week after VBS, but she kept assuring me that she would be there. She was.

The VBS theme was Pandamania. We had fun decorating. I didn't take very many pictures, but here are a few. This was my favorite. This little house was in our preschool room, so I covered it with construction paper to make it look Asian.

I couldn't stand to tear it apart when the week was over, so I left it as it was.

I hauled home tree branches from a trail behind our commissary and made tissue paper cherry tree blossoms and hot glued them on.

Pool noodles became bamboo.

I never got a picture of the huge carpet rolls that we spray painted to look like bamboo and tied a panda to.

We had two large preschool rooms to decorate and they turned out really cute. The VBS week went great as well. I had wonderful adult helpers and 50 preschool and kindergarten age kids.

Eli saved up his pennies and ordered a Lego set. While he was waiting for it (and chewing gum), he drew this great illustration.

On nights when we are home in the evening, our kids get "talk time" for 10 to 30 minutes in their rooms after stories and prayers, but before bed. Isaac finally requested his own talk time.

And a video of Isaac. This is his bedtime song from Daddy.

And that was July.

Jeju Wrap-up

2011-11-28T14:38:00.001+09:00

Looking as happy as I felt after rejoining my family and friends at the end of the race.

The three 70.3 finishers.

Ahhh, flip flops!

Me with the world's most supportive family.

Jason took the kids back to the hotel room for naps and I sat for a while eating really delicious watermelon that the race organizers were serving to the finishers and the crowd. When we went to get our bikes, mine was crawling with ants who had discovered my unfinished bottle of nutrition and the gatoraid splashes on my handle bars. Ewww.

I went home and showered and relaxed until the athlete's dinner later that evening. It was a tasty buffet. The relay guys wore their race shirts, thinking that they would be recognized as the second place relay team. We were disappointed to discover that they only had trophies for the first place team.

We did get to see a trophy up close, however, because our own Mrs. Z came in third place in her age group. Super impressive.

The guys.

Jason gave this athlete a ride to the swim start on the morning of the race. We didn't find out until the awards ceremony that she was a pro.

We thought our guys deserved a picture on the stage so we took one after the ceremony.

The amazing Z family.

Most everyone from Yongsan.

We went home and slept hard.

Monday morning we got up and squeezed in as many activities as possible. We started on a beach below an aquarium where we had tickets for a dolphin show.

These "Grandfather" statues were all over the island.

Ali's collection.

These two are sweet friends.

The dolphin/sea lion show.

The animals were impressive, but my favorite part was the melon popsicle that Jason bought me.

There was a beautiful, green valley just outside of town that I wanted to explore. It was crisscrossed with pathways and bridges that begged to be strolled on.

We drove the long way around the island to be able to hit the lava caves before we drove to the airport. We only had time for a five minute stroll below the earth's surface, but it was cold and damp down there, so five minutes was plenty.

Worn out kids.

It was a fun, quick trip. Mission accomplished.

Ironman 70.3 Jeju Korea

2011-11-27T22:43:00.000+09:00

The alarm went off on Sunday morning (RACE DAY!) for Jason at the reasonable hour of 6am. Fifteen minutes later, he gently shook me awake. With the bike and the bags all prepositioned, the kids still asleep, and Jason hurrying off to get his race number scrawled in permenant marker on his arms and legs, there was nothing for me to do except take a warm, relaxing shower, blowdry and medicate my right ear, force a half a bagel and some water down my throat and wait for go time to roll around.

Jason was expecting to return home about 7:30, but he got in early, so we put in texts and calls to Jason F, the Zs, and John, who were all riding to the swim start together, but didn't manage to get ourselves together any sooner than the original plan. After a stressful start in the hotel parking lot where I couldn't locate the rental car in the sea of identical white and silver rental cars and then thought I had the wrong keys, I finally got going and drove down the hill to the Hyatt to pick up the Zs and John. Next we picked up Jason F. at the Lotte Hotel and then we were off to the swim start at Hwasun Beach. The morning was overcast and cool. Perfect.

When we arrived, we headed straight to the body marking station and then to our bikes to pour nutrition into our bike bottles. I took one of my 800 mg Ibuprufen pills and chomped a little more on my bagel, then milled around feeling surprisingly calm, considering that the word "Jeju" could turn my stomach into an instant knot for weeks before the race. The full distance athletes had started their swim at 7:00am. Our race was set to begin at 9:00am. While I waited in line for the one-seater women's bathroom at a beachside resturant, several full IM athletes, still dripping in their wetsuits, came jogging down the hall, begging to be allowed to the front of the line so that they could get back to their races. The 70.3 athletes were happy to accomodate them.

After that we (Mrs. Z, Mr. Z, John (who was doing the bike portion of the Mr. Z-John-Jason relay)), Jason F. and I donned our wetsuits and headed to the beach for the final 15 minutes before the gun.

We said a prayer, gave a few hugs, and then spread out, everyone positioning himself or herself for the mass start. John's wife videoed the start, but the video is too large to post. I feel sick to my stomach every time I watch it.

The swim was a clockwise triangle. Knowing that I would be among the slower swimmers and not keen to be swum over by the faster crew, I placed myself to the back, left-hand side of the group and breathed as deeply as is possible in a skin-tight wetsuit, until the fateful moment when the gun went off and the athletes surged into the ocean. I took my time getting in, but when it couldn't be avoided any longer, I started paddling, head-up for the first dozen or so strokes to find a spot, and finally committed. Head down, breathing toward the bouys and the rope that marked the course, I headed out. My goal was to finish in less than 50 minutes. And to stay calm. Although I kicked and pummeled and was kicked and pummeled throughout the entire 1900 meter swim, I managed to achieve both goals, coming out of the water in 47 minutes, 58 seconds.

The swim course. We were all given bright yellow swim caps with our race number written on them. If you look closely (or click on the picture to enlarge it) you can see the safety kayaks that were stationed along the route.

Swimmers had one hour and ten minutes to complete the course or be kicked out of the race. I had a moment of panic when I glanced to the side at one point, near the end of the course and saw one of the safety boats that had been stationed along the course, paddling in. I was sure that they were coming for me, but then I looked behind me and saw about two dozen yellow swim caps still bobbing along, and then at my watch and saw that I was well under the cut-off time.

The guys were in charge of the kids for the day, so when I left in the morning, Jason headed over to the Z's hotel with our three in tow to collect the four Z kids. He loaded all seven children into the Z's rental van and drove down to the swim area to cheer for Mr and Mrs Z, Jason F and me as we emerged from the water. Jason F and Mrs. Z had an incredible swims, coming out in 31 minutes and 33 minutes, respectively.

Mrs. Z coming out of the water. There was a water table on the beach to swish the salt water out of our mouths.

When I wobbled out, I was several steps down the beach, headed to my bike before I spotted Jason and the kids. All eight of them were completely focused on the water and yelling for Mr. Z. I yelled and waved my arms, trying to get their attention, to no avail. As I got to the top of the beach I saw Mr. Z come out of the water. They had all seen him as he got close to the shore, and assuming that I would be behind him, they weren't looking for me yet.

That's me standing under the sign yelling, Eli in the blue shirt on the left and Mr. Z running up the beach in his wetsuit and yellow cap.

Eli finally saw me, so I stopped and yelled, "Tell Daddy that you saw me!!" and then I hurried off to get my bike transition bag and head for the changing tent to take off my wetsuit.

There weren't very many bags left hanging by the time I reached the transition point, which made it easier to find mine.

You weren't allowed to take off your wetsuit until you were in the changing tent.

I took my time rinsing off my feet and toweling off before I hopped on my bike.

Headed out to the bike course.

Mr. Z handed off his timing chip to John and was done for the day.

Apparently Eli did eventually tell Jason that he saw me, but Jason didn't trust that Eli would recognize me among the other 200 athletes in black wetsuits, yellow swim caps and goggles. As I put on my bike shoes and helmet I could see my family down on the beach, still scanning the water, looking for me. It was torture. On the way out of the bike transition area, though, I saw Amanda, Jason F's wife, and asked her to call my Jason and tell him that she saw me so that he would know that I hadn't drowned somewhere out in the murky sea.

It felt great to be on my bike. The course covered 56 miles, which was a significant portion of the southern part of Jeju island. Our training had been largely along the pancake-flat Han river trail, but we had done three hour rides up a nearby mountain on three different weekends, so we felt prepared. On our flat rides, our average speeds usually fell between 18 and 20mph. On the mountain ride, my average speed usually dropped to 15mph. The race course was not nearly as steep as our mountain ride, but the hills were constant, with a break only for a several mile loop through a coastal village, where the route was complicated by speed bumps and the occasional farming vehicle. My bike computer had been acting up, so I was afraid to try and switch it to find my average speed, so I was left to try and guess whether my 27 mph on the down side compensated enough for my 11 mph on the uphills. The ride went on and on. It was broken up by seeing Mrs. Z go flying by her way to the finish and by seeing John on another hill. My behind (in case you wanted to know) did not appreciate the combination of saltwater soaked bike shorts and three and a half hours on a smallish bike seat, so I took several downhills to stand up on my pedals and cruise instead of tucking into an aerodynamic position and hitting maximum speed. The most fun part of the bike was pedaling by the aid stations. The aid stations were manned by cheerful, middle-aged Korean ladies who stood and held out bottles of lid-less water and gatorade.

I enjoyed zipping by and catching the bottles almost as much as I enjoyed guzzling down the icy cold contents of the bottles. At one station I had just come down a hill and was going too fast. I dropped the first two bottles, so the third lady in line quickly switched out the water that she was holding for a gatorade and ran back to her position. I hit the brakes, grabbed the bottle and yelled a heartfelt, "THANK YOU!!!" as I flew away.

I got passed by lots of cyclists on the bike course, but only two of them were my competitors. The rest were the professionals, first the 70.3 racers, and then the full-course racers. I briefly considered pulling in behind them and drafting (which would have been illegal, but so much fun), but they were always gone as fast as saw them, so I never had the chance. I did lots of passing on the bike, which always feels good, unless they are clearly suffering, in which case it feels a little mean.

I pulled into the bike finish after three hours, thirty-three minutes and twenty-five seconds. I had only managed to down about half of the nutrition on my bike so I took a few quick gulps before the bike catcher grabbed my bike and wheeled it away. Then I headed to my run bag, removed my helmet, sunglasses and riding gloves, wiped my face, did a quick spray of sunscreen, pulled on my running shoes, pinned on my race number (athletes were required to display their race number on their back for the bike and their front for the run), threw on my newly acquired sweat-catching visor, stopped at the aid station to fill my water flask that I would store in my back pocket on my shirt, gulped down two salt tablets and an ibuprofen, and I was off again.

Jason F was the first of our friends to arrive at the bike/run transition.

Dawn wasn't far behind.

Jason was waiting for the timing chip when John pulled in from his ride. I love the series of pictures that John's wife took of what could very well be the world's fastest transition.

Seven seconds, start to finish.

All of my friends were already on the out-and-back run course by the time that I got to it so I began looking for people as soon as I got out there. I was hoping to run a two hour 13.1 miles. I would need to maintain 9:09 minute miles (including water stops) to do that. Realistically, I wanted to push myself to do whatever my legs were still capable of after the first 57.2 miles of the race. The race started out downhill and my legs felt strong. The slope quickly swerved up and my pace fell off dramatically. After four and a half hours of downing lots and lots of liquids, my bladder was yelling for attention. Near the top of the first hill, a mile and a half into the course, and mere feet from the road, stood the answer to my prayers. A beautiful, clean bathroom. With toilet paper, no line, and a sink with cold, running water to wash my hands and splash my salty face. Bliss. I jogged back on course a much more comfortable woman.

The road continued the ups and downs and ups and downs for the full distance. If there was a flat spot, if didn't last more than ten paces, guaranteed. At 3.22 miles in, racing down a hill towards me was the love of my life and my number one fan. Jason was moving fast, but nearly ten miles into his race he managed to look like he was putting almost no effort into his forward motion. He yelled encouragement and advice as he blew past, even turning around and jogging backwards for a couple of paces to be sure that I could hear him. I hollered, "I love you!" and kept going. At 3.66 miles in, I spotted Mrs. Z and got instant goosebumps, which is always my reaction when I see my training partners doing well in their races. Her Garmin wasn't cooperating, so she yelled, "How much farther?" as she went past. I told her and then yelled, "D, you are so sexy!!" She had told me several weeks before about her favorite triathlete who was struggling in a race, exhausted and dripping in sweat when a fan yelled, "Chrissy, you are so sexy!" The triathlete said that was exactly the funny encouragement that she needed at the time, so I promised D that I would yell that to her when I saw her.

Our friend, Jason F is a super fast swimmer and a great cyclist. He was concerned about cramping in the run and it was a hot (mid-80s) and humid day, so when I didn't see him close to Jason and Mrs. Z, I wondered what had happened. A couple of miles later I saw him walking stiffly down a hill. It was obvious that he had cramped up, so I asked, "Are you okay?" (Clearly, he wasn't) and he asked, "Are you hurting as bad as I am?" (Clearly, I wasn't) and we both kept going.

My training partners had advised me to walk the aid stations and I was delighted to take their advice. The run stations were all stocked with cold water, gatorade, Pepsi, and buckets of ice water with floating sponges. I enjoyed all of them. It was several stops in before I tried the Pepsi, but it gave me an instant sugar rush, so after that I downed a small cup at each stop, drinking more Pepsi on the race than I have in the previous five years, combined, probably.

I wore two watches from the bike on. On my left wrist I wore my ancient Timex Ironman that Jason bought for me in college. I started the timer on it when the gun went off for the swim so that I would know what my total time was and could keep track of my transition times. On my right wrist I wore my Garmin gps watch, which I reset between the bike and the run. The Garmin told me how far I had gone and my pace. As I neared the end of the run, I started to get nervous that I wasn't going to make it in less than seven hours, my stated race goal. The joy of being terrible at math is that it took my mind off of the run for minutes at a time as I tried to calculate how fast my final miles needed to be to finish sub-seven hours. After a final, seemingly endless hill, the beautiful downhill mile to the finish began. I had chased an Asian girl, who I was guessing was in my age group, for a while. She slowed down we approached the end, so I passed her and logged my fastest half mile of the run as I did my best (exhausted) sprint to the finish line. I could hear Jason and kids cheering as I came around the final corner and my body responded, as it usually does, with my throat closing up with emotion and my sweaty skin prickling up with goosebumps. The first full ironman finisher crossed his finish line just before I did, so there were lots of cheers and a short blast of first fireworks as I approached the line.

I finishedthe run in two hours and sixteen minutes and crossed the finish line at six hours, fifty-one minutes and twenty-nine seconds. The culmunation of nine weeks of dedicated training and years of admiring my inspiring friend D/Mrs. Z, who made a habit of racing the utterly ridiculous length of 70.3 mile triathlons. It was so wonderful to be cheered across the line by my family, who put up with and encouraged me through 7 to 10 hour training weeks and lots of Saturday mornings when I was missing from the table for pancake breakfasts.

The finish line photos:

The second place relay team! Jason's half marathon time was 1 hour, 44 minutes.

Jason F cramped up badly in the heat and was forced to hobble about half of the run portion. He beat me by one minute. (And then went on to have a blazing fast 70.3 a couple of months later in New York).

It was a pretty amazing feeling to come around that final corner and see the finish line and hear the cheers.

Jason captured the moment on video.

The training and the race were 80% pleasure, 20% misery. The memories are pure pleasure. I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Jeju Island - Days 1, 2 and 3

2011-11-18T16:04:00.001+09:00

Jeju Island is South Korea's vacation destination of choice. It was also the site of South Korea's Ironman and Half-Ironman races on July 3rd, 2011. We had been wanting to visit the island while we lived here and I had been eager to complete a half-ironman race, so after traing hard for nine weeks, we packed our bags and headed south on Thursday, June 30th. Jason trains hard for life, so when he noticed, three weeks before race day, that there were only two teams signed up for the relay, he assembled a team and signed up as well. We checked into The Suites Hotel and then drove around the corner to the registration tent. They were just closing down for the evening, so we found our names in the lists, browsed through the gear shop and then started checking out the sites of the island.

Jason with the relay team list. His team was bib number 7243. They raced against two Korean teams.

I was number 7182, one of nine women in the 30-34 age group category. The men's field was significantly more crowded.

Teddy bears are huge here. Literally and figuratively. The Teddy Bear Museum dominated the corner where the race registration tent was located, so we decided to check it out. It was three levels of stuffed teddy bears, teddy bear paintings and teddy bear sculptures, plus an outdoor sculpture park with more bears. Pricey, but boring.

We breezed through the maze of teddy bears and then headed to The Chocolate Museum. How could you go wrong in a chocolate museum? I'll tell you... Charge a large admission fee and then make the only part of the museum that looks mildly interesting (pouring chocolate into molds to create your own chocolates) cost even more money. The only redeeming quality was that there were a few nibbles of sample chocolates available, Santa was there,

and there were these.

We went out for a tasty beef and leaf dinner that evening.

Besides the race, the only thing on our "must do" list, was a hike up the volcano that formed the island. We elected to do it on Friday (the race was on Sunday), on fresh legs, since we were leaving the day after the race. It was an overcast day, but we didn't let that stop us. We chose the shortest hike. It was something like 9km one way. And the way was up.

Taking a breather.

Isn't the view amazing?

No? Oh well, there were ladybugs to look at instead.

Looking back down the trail.

The rock formations (if you can see them) were called Buddha's 500 Disciples.

The fog blew out just long enough to ask someone to take our picture and get ourselves arranged. It blew back in before the click. Rats.

Out again! Pretty waterfalls.

Eli got permission and then took off ahead of us. Ali and Isaac got tired and Ali got a blister, so the three of us waited at a rest stop while Jason surged ahead to get Eli (still short of the top by several kilometers) and then we headed back down the mountain.

That evening, Friday, was the athlete's dinner buffet at the convention center in town. I piled up my plate, but the spagetti was unnaturally spicy and there was a race video looping on the big screen that was stoking my race anxiety. Those factors, combined with the pain and queasiness from my outer/middle ear infection left me feeling not very hungry. The Zs arrived in town that evening, but by the time they drove over from the airport, they missed the dinner. We ended up sitting at a table full of 40-60 year old Australians. Most of them were doing the full Ironman. Incredibly impressive.

Saturday was a blur of final preparations. Jason and I assembled my bike on Friday evening in the bathroom while the kids were falling asleep. I took it for a test ride on Saturday morning and went for a short run.

This paper was my brain for the weekend. Besides the encouraging note, it contained...

My packing list for my swim bag, my bike bag and my run bag, which would be stashed in each transition area....

...and my medication schedule. I had gone to bed on the night before we left for Jeju with my left ear hurting. By midnight it was really, really hurting and none of my internet remedies were helping, so I decided it would be better to go to the ER at home than hope it got better over night and have to go to a Korean hospital in Jeju. I got pulled over for speeding (I don't think that I was) on the way to the hospital, but the MP let me go when I told him where I was headed. I was seen right away and diagnosed with acute swimmer's ear (Thanks alot, Camp Humphrey's Triathlon). They sent me on my way with Vicoden, Tylenol, ear numbing drops and medicated ear drops and instructed me to stay out of the water. And since the doctor knew that I wouldn't be staying out of the water, with further instructions to wear waxy ear plugs for the swim and stay out of the water after my race.

Jason and I both wore our ironman timex watches and our sports wedding bands for the race, so we had to take a picture.

At some point during the day there was a mandatory race briefing. They claimed that it was in English, but anyone who participated would have begged to differ. My ear was throwing off my equilibrium and I was feeling anxious and sick to my stomach for the whole miserable thing.

We and the Zs drove out to the swim start together and Mr and Mrs Z and I all got in and swam a little. It was very foggy and I could only see the first set of bouys until I got almost to them and then I could see that they went much further out in the sea. The combination of my wetsuit and the salt water made sinking an impossibility, so that was a good confidence booster.

Mrs Z, Jason F and I rode out to the swim together just before dinner to check our bikes into the swim/bike transition point. We loved the vote of confidence displayed on the huge sign at the swim start.

Once we got our bikes tucked in for the night, we drove back to the Z's hotel to discuss dinner plans. We finally settled on what we thought was the simple plan - dinner in the hotel resturant. We ordered hamburgers for the kids and various pasta dishes for the adults. We ate bread while we waited. And more bread. And waited. Nearly 90 minutes later, our food arrived. We complained about the ridiculous wait and they gave us the hamburgers for free. We would have prefered prompt service, but we took it. Happy faces with full bellies.

The hotel room with the transition bags laid out on our bed. Ali slept on chairs, Eli slept on a rollaway and Isaac got one of the full sized beds. We all got a surprisingly good night's rest before the big day.

Camp Humphreys Sprint Triathlon

2011-11-18T14:18:00.001+09:00

I was gearing up for my half-iron triathlon and Jason had been swimming, biking and running too, so we decided to make a date out of a trip down south to a sprint triathlon being held at Camp Humphreys. The weather forecast looked miserable (cold and rainy) as the date approached, but we had a sitter reserved, so we got up early on the morning of June 25th and drove down. J and his wife, a guy that we biked several long bike rides with throughout the spring and summer, came down too so that he could participate in his first triathlon. Jason had recruited J to do the bike portion of the Jeju 70.3 the following weekend. J recruited his wife to come along to Jeju by asking first if she wanted to go to Jeju to celebrate their anniversary and then slipping in the fact that there also happened to be a race going on that weekend. But back to this event...

The rain had cleared by the time that we got there and we had a fun day together.

The race started in the pool and since there were only eight lanes, the start went in waves. I got into the pool ahead of Jason (amid some confusion about whether they had waved my shoe that held the timing chip across the starting line or not).

Jason got into the pool shortly after I did and by the end of the 400 meters he had caught me.

It was fun to exit the pool together and transition to our bikes at the same time.

The official event photographer took a picture of the two of us as we headed out and they used that photo in advertising for a triathlon that was held later in the summer. They used another picture in the tv wrap-up that you can see here at second 19 of the 30 second spot: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5eiIIFiRV8

Jason finished the 12 mile bike ride well ahead of me and made a quick transition to the 3.1 mile run.

I'm not gonna lie, running on tired biking legs is no fun for the first mile or so. When you train for the bike to run transition, the workout is called a brick. I'm pretty sure that the person who came up with the name was describing how his legs felt when he tried to run on them.

Jason heading for the finish line. He finished in 1 hour 9 minutes and 4 seconds.

I crossed the finish line in 1 hour, 22 minutes.

My time was good enough for second place in the women's 32 and over age group.

Denali happily added the trophy to her dresser collection.

Ode to S

2011-11-05T17:20:00.000+09:00

Hands down, the best thing about our time in Korea has been the incredible friendships that we have made. Most of the friends that we met when we first got here only stayed for two years, while we extended for a third year, so we said lots of sad goodbyes this summer. One of the hardest goodbyes was S. She and D trained together on their road bikes when D first got here and then they traveled to a half ironman race together in Singapore. When I got my road bike the three of us started training together and S joined D and I for early morning runs as well and then for early morning swims. The three of us, over the course of just over a year, trained together for two 70.3 races (the two of them raced in Thailand together and D and I did Jeju together, but we trained as a team) and at least three marathons. That's a lot of hours. I looked forward to every single training session because it meant girl time with S and D.

When the time came for S to move, she wanted us to do her favorite things together one more time. Her list included dinner at the Navy Club on-post, a visit to the Dragon Hill Spa (D and I had been before and we knew that she would love it), and a long bike ride.

Our good friend, K, joined us for dinner, but despite our pleading, declined to join us for the spa or the bike ride.

First up, dinner:

Next stop, the spa. This is us in one of the uber hot (clothed) sauna rooms.

K sent us with moisturing face masks. Don't we look hot?

The entrance to another furnace.

After the saunas we hit the women-only area for womb cleansings (hilarious), body scrubs (so painful), massages (also suprisingly painful) and hair yanking, errr, shampoos. We giggled like school girls and had the best time.

The three amigas.

We miss you like crazy, S. I am so glad that you were and are a beautiful part of my life.

Chores, A duck, a dead fish and some cute kids

2011-10-31T14:45:00.000+09:00

Cute pictures that don't need their own posts.

Putting away silverware is one of Ali's chores, but Isaac sometimes requests to do it. He completes the task with a happy heart.

And this is what the silverware drawer looks like when he is done.

Eli with a Lego car, the last set that his beloved Papa Mac bought for him.

Eli and I checked a book of science experiments out of the library a while ago. The book included a description of how to mummify a dead fish. Eli was hooked. Every time we went to the commissary he begged for a fish to mummify. I finally agreed and we came home with this beauty and four boxes of baking soda that were supposed to dry out and shrink up the scaly creature. We defrosted it and the kids watched with plugged and crinkled noses while I took the guts out. The book didn't offer any warnings, and I didn't exercise any common sense, so we stored the fish, contained in a sealed up plastic case, on a shelf in Eli's closet.

Two days later I was reading the kids their bed time story and Jason came into Eli's bedroom to put clothes in his closet. Eli still enjoys re-enacting Jason's reaction when he opened the closet and was nearly knocked over by the horrific odor.

I moved the fish, now wrapped in several plastic bags as well, out to the back porch for the remaining two weeks of the experiment. The kids completely lost interest, but I wanted to see what would happen, so I pooh-poohed my family's complaints about the occasional whiffs of putridness on the back porch and carried on. When the time was up, I required the children to at least watch through the closed window as I unveiled the fish. He was decidedly smelly and, while I can't claim any real knowledge of a typical mummy, I'm pretty sure that our fish would not have qualified. If we ever try again, we will use a much smaller fish and someone else's back porch.

Here is Ali, our fashionista/singer/fairy.

And all around cutie.

Isaac got hand-me-down Buzz Lightyear pjs from the Z family. He LOVED them. Especially because Eli has a matching pair.

Father's day picture.

Eli decided that he wanted to be a duck. He went to work with his art supplies and this is what he came up with.

And one more of Eli's art projects. This was a self portrait:

ROCK Chapel Outings

2011-10-25T12:48:00.001+09:00

More group fun, this time with our chapel. We went to Everland on Memorial Day.

My right arm was very sore the next day. It took me a while to realize that it was from an adult ball battle.

For Labor Day we went to Lotte World, a world-class amusement park about an hour away.

This was my favorite ride.

Two more fun days.

Fun Fridays!

2011-10-25T12:02:00.000+09:00

D and I planned Fun Friday excursions for PWOC, our women's Bible study group, again this summer. Our first two attempts were rained out, so we went for the back-up plans.

First up was the Gwacheon Science Museum. The boys enjoyed the subway ride almost as much as the museum.

Every 30 minutes or so this giant ball in the middle of one of the rooms produces electricity and it flashes like lightening and buzzes very loudly. It scared Ali and Isaac rather badly.

Our next stop was the National Museum of Korea, a short walk away from post. It was drizzling a little and there was an attendant out front checking umbrellas.

The gorgeous G girls. They were our neighbors, small group Bible study hosts, D was our PWOC president and the girls were our regular babysitters. We miss them!

My favorite outing was to the Children's Grand Park.

It was a beautiful, sunny day.

Entrance is free and there is SO much to do there.

The always popular canary feeding station.

The fun, free, zoo.

This was not a Fun Friday, just an afternoon at home with sweet friends, C and A.

Back on topic... Our final outing was to the National Museum of Korea. This time our destination was a free pottery class that was offered in one of the classrooms down stairs. We sat through a painfully long slide show (doubled in length because it all had to be translated).

Our reward was an hour with clay and tools.

Eli and his dragon that must have fallen apart during the drying process, because they didn't return it. =(

Ali and her cat.

Isaac wasn't interested in creating anything, so Eli made him a quick snake at the end of the session.

Some of our group's creations.

We waited for six weeks to get them back. Here is how they turned out.

What a fun summer.

PWOC 2010-2011

2011-08-15T23:43:00.000+09:00

Protestant Women of the Chapel (PWOC) is the women's ministry of Protestant U.S. military chapels around the world. I attended PWOC in Kansas and was eager to get involved again when we moved to Korea. At the end of my first year of PWOC, the newly appointed Spiritual Life director, A, whom I knew a little bit from Cubbies, asked me if I would pray about leading one of the studies (there are typically five to seven studies going on within the body each semester) for this past year. I immediately said "No. That is not my gift." (If you make it sound spiritual, people are more likely to leave you alone than if you just say, "No. I prefer to spend my time napping in the afternoons.") It didn't work. A asked again and again over the summer and made me promise to pray about it. She wanted me to lead a study on parenting. I like to think of myself as a fairly competent mother, but the book in question only applied to kids five and over, and I had only had a single year of relevant experience. Finally, the day approached when A was going to have a training session with the new study leaders and finalize the studies. I went happily to bed the night before, secure in the knowledge that by the time lunch was over the next day, I would be off the hook for leading a study. But then... God kept me awake. Until 2:00am. I finally told him that I didn't want to lead a parenting study and he reminded me that I had been wanting to get away from topical studies and back to the Word. I agreed that I would call Anna in the morning and find out if there was a book of the Bible study that still needed a leader and then I went to sleep.

Surprise, surprise, or not... when I went to the training in the morning, the parenting study had a leader and the study on Judges and Colossians needed a leader. I went into leadership with fear and trembling. The first requirement was to stand in front of nearly 100 (terrifying) women and introduce my study. Although I may be smiling in the picture, the reason that I am slightly out of focus is probably that I am shaking.

The rest of the semester (and the next one) were a breeze after the hard work of saying "yes" and talking in front of people were done. I found that I LOVED digging deeply into God's word. The book of Judges was absolutely fascinating to study. We (my very faithful group of 15 ladies) came away from the study rather unimpressed with the judges, but extremely impressed with God. Our studies of Colossians and then Ruth and the Sermon on the Mount were equally interesting. We used the Coffee Cup Bible study series and we really enjoyed them.

Fast forward to the Spring. These are some of the lovely ladies that we said good-bye to on our final Spring session.

This was most of the board. I volunteered for the easiest position on the board - historian, and then split it with my friend, S, to make it even easier. It was a neat group of ladies.

D was the child care coordinator. The kids must have had fun because they were always happy to go.

And that was PWOC last year. I'm excited to dive back in to the Fall session in September!

Stuffed Animal Picnic and Buddha's BDay

2011-08-12T22:59:00.000+09:00

Here's how the kids filled one monsoony afternoon:

Every good picnic starts with toast.

What could be classier than an old sheet and red plastic cups?

The guests arrived and were thoughtfully accomodated.

The centerpiece.

I love that it is adorned with all of Ali's most treasured and most beautiful possessions.

A quick peanut-butter-on-a-spoon snack to keep the host and hostess's energy levels up.

Picnic food prep.

The chefs.

The wait staff.

The playdough cake decorating took long enough for Eli to make a wardrobe change.

The party adjourned shortly after the cake was served.

That evening a friend from high school, T, joined us for yucky Korean food court food and a beautiful lantern display in honor of Buddha's birthday. T was in town on a business trip.

Eli quickly made a connection with T over Legos and spent the evening chatting his ears off about all of the models that he owns and the ones that he hopes to own. T has his own Lego loving seven or eight year old boy, so he was able to follow most of the conversation.

Eli was trying to pose a little too closely with these lanterns and he managed to get hot wax dripped on his hand. I assumed that the lanterns were electric, but these ones, at least, were candle powered.

We considered finding something flat to balance on Eli's head for this picture, but we didn't want to appear too disrespectful.

Happy birthday, Buddha. You should know that even though you are celebrated with beautiful lanterns, Jesus is the light of the world, whoever comes to him will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. John 8:12

AWANA Cubbies

2011-08-12T15:40:00.000+09:00

I have very fond memories of riding the school bus to my bus stop, probably throughout my second - fourth grade year, and getting off the bus, but instead of crossing the road to head home, my friends and I would walk past the little store, through the woods for a few steps and over to the little Kasilof Community (Baptist) church. There we would spend ninety minutes, once a week, studying and reciting verses, playing relay games (I was a crabwalk specialist), drinking brightly colored koolaid, and singing. We seemed to mostly sing that one song about pharoah's army falling into the sea, which always seemed a little morbid to me, but the lady with the braids and the guitar up front must have been able to play that one really well, plus it could be done in a round and it had a fun clapping component.

Fast forward 26 or so years... when we heard that there was an AWANA program at the chapel last year, we were eager to enroll Eli in Sparks and Ali in Cubbies. Last year's Cubbie director required that Cubbie parents stay in the room, so Ali and I spent Monday nights together, working on verses, doing crafts, listening to Bible stories, occasionally playing games, and singing. There were six to eight Cubbies each week last year. The group occasionally dipped to four and may have hit 10 a time or two, but it was generally a very small, very casual group. When the year ended, last year's director wanted to move up to Sparks because his youngest daughter was moving up. After much prayer, I volunteered to take over for the 2010-2011 school year. I recruited several of our friends to join, so I knew that the group would be larger this year, but I was still surprised when 25 Cubbies registered on the first night. We had a wonderful year together. Although we had kids move out and come in throughout the year, we never dipped below 20 kids and I think that our highest number was 27 or 28. I had several very dedicated parents who worked as table leaders and craft leaders, and took turns with me telling the stories, leading the games and bringing snacks. The kids memorized 30 (sometimes shortened) foundational verses such as, "...while we were sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8 and "He is not here; He has risen, just as He said..." Matthew 28:6.

The year had its frustrating moments, like the two months where the little boys decided that game-time and story-time and wait-for-your-parents-to-come-and-pick-you-up-time were actually "TACKLE TIME!" and I felt like I spent most of the evening picking up stacks of small, energetic boys and placing them back in appropriate locations. And other incidents that caused me to scarf down whole pans of brownies (I eat when I'm stressed) while drafting emails to offended or offending parties, but those irritations paled when I got to share Jesus with a group of precious preschoolers who soaked in the stories (and then answered "God!" to every question about the story) or listen to a little voice lisp "The dithiples were overjoyed when they thaw the Lord!"

Here are a few pictures from one of our final evenings together:

Room one, above. Room two, below.

This wonderful lady was the game leader queen. She somehow (years of homeschooling her nine children, no doubt) managed to combine calm, with fun, with learning. Amazing.

A group photo.

The Music Man came for ten minutes at the end of each evening. He did a great job and the kids loved him. Here we are singing "The B-I-B-L-E." There were so many tears the first couple of times that we sang the song from kids who didn't get to hold a letter, that he made enough copies for every kid to have one. Brilliant.

The most requested song was "Making Melodies." It is a fun, action song with verses that build to the final strain of "Making melodies in my heart (x3) to the King of kings. Thumbs up, elbows out, knees bent, knees bent lower, bottom up, head back, tongue out, in a circle."

I really should have taken pictures of the grown-ups singing because they could never resist joining in.

Eli had a wonderful year upstairs in Sparks. There are few things as beautiful to hear from the mouths of my children as God's living and active Word. AWANAs thoughtfully included several Sparks verses tailored made for writing sentences as correction ("Even a child is known by his actions, by whether his conduct is pure and right." and "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right." are probably the two that Eli became most familiar with this year. =)

Ali and I will be moving up to Sparks next year. I can't wait to continue the journey.

My Days

2011-08-05T16:26:00.000+09:00

I love May. This year Eli's class had a special mother's day tea. The kids made chocolate dipped strawberries, cute little sandwiches, and other fun food to serve to us. Eli wasn't the only kid who found the food so appealing that he couldn't help asking me to share it.

The kids got to sing in the church service and then deliver flowers to the moms.

Jason ordered an ice cream cake for me for my birthday and surprised me with it at our small group Bible study.

Happy May!

March and May Marathons

2011-08-05T15:39:00.001+09:00

Seoul Internation Marathon in March was miserable. It rained for a large portion of the run and it was chilly, but the worst part was that the air, which is rarely clear here, was the worst that I have ever seen it. The air quality index rates the air as good, moderate, unhealthy for sensitive groups, unhealthy, very unhealthy, or hazardous. The air on the morning of the race was decidedly in the "hazardous" category. There was rain in the forecast, though, and when I called Jason just before the start, the air had cleared enough to warrant a "very unhealthy" (though it later dipped back down). After training for the race for months, I faced the very difficult decision whether to go ahead, or throw away my chance for an elusive sub 4 hour marathon, the registration money that I had paid, and a morning of running with my two training partners and best friends. I lined up and waited for the starting gun wearing a plastic bag and a face mask. I ripped off the improvised heat-retention, rain protection bag within the first couple of miles and the face mask (meant to filter the air) got soaked through and drooped off about eight miles in. In order to finish under four hours, we had to keep a 9:09 minute mile pace. The first nine miles were crowded, but we kept the pace without much effort, even while dodging elbows and puddles. About half way between miles nine and ten, I got stuck in the crowd, while my partners, D and S found holes in the crowd, and a gap began to open between us. Nearly to the half-way point, 13.1 miles, I could still catch glimpes of their backs in the straight sections, but my legs refused to close the gap. All three of us ran in our matching, bright pink jackets, so they were easy to spot. I crossed the halfway point on track to meet my goal, but I had already slowed down and was losing time. Within a couple of miles I was off track, time-wise, and hating every soggy step. At one point, fifteen or sixteen miles into the race, I ran past a sign strictly warning people again doing any outdoor activities due to the current air quality. My mental game was already suffering because I was hurting and trying to figure out how I had justified exposing my lungs to the horrific air and that sign didn't help. Seoul International weaves all through the city, so I passed many, many subway entrances during the race. Every one of them tempted me. I had a little cash in my pocket and I could easily have made my way to the Olympic Stadium, found my family (who probably would have applauded my decision to save my lungs) and waited to cheer my friends across the finish line. Alas, my pride and stubbornness won out and I trudged my way through the entire course and into the stadium for the final lap. My friends and family yelled my name as I did my best shuffle-sprint across the line and then hobbled over for hugs. My time was 4 hours, 27 minutes.

My friends had better races. S (on the right), whose fastest marathon was a 4:01 last year, finished strong at 3:58. D, who had already sub-foured convincingly last year, finished this race in 4:06, I believe. In the same conditions, with nearly identical training. I was geniunely happy for them, but very frustrated with myself. So... two weeks later I signed up for a May 1st marathon. D talked about doing it with me, but she was fighting an injury, so she decided to sit it out. For the five weeks between races I did several long runs on my own. I worked hard at maintaining my pace at the end of long runs (where I usually struggle), even picking up the pace when I could.

The night before the marathon, I was feeling nervous. Eli made my day by presenting me this card that he designed and created.

If you can't tell, the tree, the park bench, the flower and the mommy all pop up. The mommy is carrying a water bottle, like I did when I ran in the heat during our Guam vacation.

The morning of the marathon Eli got up before the other kids and came downstairs to find Jason reading his Bible. He ran and got his Bible for his own quiet time.

This guy, or his twin squid man was in S's finish line picture from a marathon last year. We ran together for several miles and I desperately wanted to beat him, but alas, squid man was faster. If you can tear your eyes away from the flapping yellow legs, please take a glance at the sky. Yep, this race day came, once again, with hazardous air. The race started in decent air, but about two hours in the yellow dust blew in and the air was thick with it. Ugh.

Can I just pretend that yellow dust/severe air pollution is my kyptonite? This race was along the river where we run and bike several days a week. It included one big hill that had to be tackled on the way out and again after the turn around point. Again, my energy began to fade around mile ten and I was dragging by mile eighteen or so, when my training partner, D, rode out on her bike with cold water and enocouraging words, and found me. I was happy to see her, but even her comforting presence couldn't make me go any faster. I was delighted to finally near the end and see these cuties clapping and cheering for me.

I crossed the line in four hours, 24 minutes. Disappointed yet again and telling myself that perhaps I am a half-marathon girl, not a marathoner. Still, five marathons in less than 14 months is an accomplishment (as my kind training partners keep telling me) even if none of them were quite as fast as I wanted them to be. I have yet to sign up for another marathon. If they just weren't sooooo long, they would be a lot more fun.

The race organizers gave me my finishers medal and then handed out 5k medals to each of the kids. Isaac clearly wanted something more impressive.

Then it was home for an ice bath and some fresh, inside air, a quick nap and off to a Cirque Acrobatic performance on post. The athletes/performers were incredibly impressive, accomplishing feats of incredible strength, balance and flexibility. The pictures didn't turn out very well, but this is two people, folded in half backwards and stacked on top of each other.

This guy went much higher and less stable with his balancing platform, but this was the only picture that I got.

We went to the show with lots of our friends and as usual, we had a great time.

Ali's Fifth Birthday

2011-08-04T15:51:00.000+09:00

What, you thought that you already saw Ali's birthday? That was the feeling that I was starting to get too, by the time that I made school cupcakes for Eli, a family and close friends birthday cake/party for Eli, the Hello Kitty joint party, and then Ali's real birthday. We are going to have to find a way to simplify next year, but we didn't this year, so here are the pics of the day...

Ali's birthday fell on a Tuesday this year. Tuesday was ballet day all winter and spring. Ali mostly enjoyed ballet, but she ccn be a little chatterbox, so while the other ballerinas were (mostly) carefully watching the instructor and soaking in the french terms, Ali could often be heard to say things like, "Look, there is a spider in the corner!" or posing in positions that allowed her to maintain eye contact with Isaac and I and grin her biggest grin instead of watching her form in the mirror.

Isaac was a patient audience, for the most part. I often brought materials to class and he would have speech class while Ali did ballet.

Getting to wear her tutu was the primary reason that Ali looked forward to going to class.

The instructor took the class very seriously and I couldn't help but smile every time she cheerfully told the group of three, four and five year-olds, "It's okay if this stretch hurts a little! It is supposed to hurt!"

This is my favorite picture from the class.

This position was perfect for smiling at us.

The class always ended with a complicated, flowy series of moves, culminating in a curtsy and applause.

Sticker time! Isaac always hurried over for sticker time as well.

We stuck with the birthday theme for Ali's family cake. It was quick and easy to make.

Our sweet five year-old!

Presents!

I love these sparkly brown eyes.

Ali having "talk time" in her room.

Five is such a big birthday. It is hard to believe that our little girl is there already. Happy birthday, precious Dolly. Your mommy and daddy love you very much.

Easter 2011

2011-08-04T15:46:00.000+09:00

Isaac was the only kid who didn't break an egg this year.

"Awww, I LOVE this one!"

Mixing it up with some paint.

I can remember Mom commenting every year about how much she enjoyed using the colored eggs in the days and weeks (we usually got at least three dozen per kid and there were four of us!) after Easter, and what a let down it was to have to switch back to boring white eggs. I felt the same way when I came to the end of our four dozen cheerful, lovingly created eggs this year.

Waiting for Easter baskets.

Or, if your mom doesn't have a place to store three Easter baskets, you get crayon/marker containers that were emptied for the occasion.

Home from church. Ali was delighted with her fancy Easter dress from Grandma Joyce. She found her feathery, tiara headband in Toy Alley and she declared the dress and the headband a perfect match. She begged to be allowed to wear the same outfit the following Sunday as well.

We had the Zs over for Easter dinner. I couldn't resist taking a picture of my Easter bunny rolls.

We started a new tradition this year... Resurrection rolls. Instead of the store bought crescent roll dough that the instructions called for, I used leftover dough from the bunny rolls. The kids each took a large marshmallow (pure white, like Jesus), dipped it in butter (the anointing oil), rolled it in cinnamon/sugar (the anointing spices), and encased it the dough (the tomb). We put the rolls in the oven and baked them.

When we opened the rolls, the "tombs" were empty! Jesus is risen!

The kids loved the project. I used it with my AWANA Cubbies when we had our Easter story on Monday night as well and it was a hit with the parents and the kids. I think that we will make it a yummy, yearly tradition.

Joint Birthday Party ~ Hello Kitty Town

2011-08-02T17:14:00.000+09:00

Ali wanted a Hello Kitty Town birthday. I was only up for one big party, so we picked a date between Eli's March birthday and Ali's April birthday, invited three friends each, made reservations and waited for the big day.

Ali requested Hello Kitty cupcakes (with white noses instead of yellow):

Eli wanted Lego Ninja-go cupcakes.

Hello Kitty Town is a fun place, so we invited any family members of the party kids who wanted to to join us. First stop, the costume room!

Or the new toys.

Do you recognize this masked boy?

Or that one?

This is Ali's sweet friend, A. She came over a lots of times this year while her mom or I monitored the school bus. Ali and A could spend hours playing My Little Pony or house in Ali's room and they almost never had an arguement. We were very sad to see her family move this summer.

Riding the train.

Sweet baby M.

S, another sweet friend of Ali's. She lives in a different neighborhood, so they mostly see each other at church.

Hello Kitty Town is not just fun for kids.

O, one of Eli's friends from his class.

The birthday princess.

Lunch time!

Isaac was in a Snow White loving phase. There weren't any Seven Dwarves outfits, so he went with the next closest thing.

"Happy Birthday to you...."

Friends and cupcakes. A perfect combination.

Presents.

A final lap.

I love this picture of little M, worn out from the fun.

The girls (plus L).

The boys.

The kids were happy, the parents had fun, and we all went home full. I would say that the party was a success.

Spring Break - Guam, Part V

2011-08-02T13:00:00.000+09:00

This is it, I promise. The final Guam installment. For you, special deal, three days of vacationing, only one click.

Thursday:

It's an Isaac tsunami!

He kept hopping off the slide, waving and saying, "Bye-bye!!" and running around to do it again.

Ali's water doll, Sarah, made the trip over and over as well.

Vacationing in Guam was appealing because of the tropical weather, the beach and the water park, but also because it is America and living over here makes us miss America sometimes. Besides family and friends, the thing that I miss most about the states is the easy shopping. If you have never lived overseas, you probably don't truly appreciate the ease with which you can run to a store (craft, clothing, hardware, home goods, sporting goods and the list goes on and on) and be relatively certain that you will be able to find exactly what you need. And if you have a question, or need to return something, no problem, you speak the language, you can just ask! And when you get an answer, you will most likely understand! Ah, the beauty of it all. So how does Guam fit in? Guam has malls. And, the best clothing store ever invented... Ross. Jason knows my weakness for Ross, so he encouraged me to hop the shuttle bus and enjoy two blissful afternoons shopping, while the kids napped. I love my husband. I don't have any pictures of shopping, but you can fill in the blank by imagining me with a great, big grin on my face and full shopping bags full of super bargains in each hand.

Jason and the kids rode the shuttle to the mall to meet me after they took naps one afternoon. We had dinner at Chuck E. Cheese. This picture was taken after the visit to the counter of worthless items, where kids take their stacks and stacks of tickets that they earn playing games and trade them in for junk. Ali was disappointed in her junk. I tried to tell her that her disappointment was to be expected because the prizes were all junk. Oddly, that didn't seem to improve things. Hence, the frown.

We visited the incredible Guam USO, right across the street from our hotel before going in for the night.

During the week, Jason spotted a Banana Festival advertised in one of the tourist publications. Bananas are as close as Jason comes to an addiction. Just yesterday, he made a stop at the commissary on his way to work because we were out of bananas at the house. I was shopping in the afternoon, but he needed one for breakfast. So, if there was a celebration of the fruit (or herb, if you want to argue), the Alvis family was going to be there. We hopped in the rental car and drove across the island in the rain. Sometime before we arrived, it occurred to me that, although the festival was listed as running Friday through Sunday, it probably would not kick off until Friday evening. I was correct. When we pulled into a parking area all that they was to see was a small crew setting up tents and tables in the pouring rain. We took a quick visit to the potty, met the Mayor's son-in-law (who informed us of the evening start time) and then hopped back in our car.

Next stop, Tropical Fruit World. The map, below, made it look very exciting. Turns out the next tour wasn't leaving for a couple of hours and when it pulled out, the only language spoken on-board would be Japanese.

The stop wasn't a complete bust, however, because the gift shop had these tropical fruit flavored honey (another important food in Jason's diet) sticks. Yum.

That evening, we headed back to the Banana Festival. The sunset on the drive made the whole thing worthwhile.

We stopped for 27 quick family pictures. This one was the best of the sorry lot.

Our monkeys with the festival monkey.

The fruit of honor.

The mayor (I think), passing out homemade banana items. The kids probably didn't appreciate them as the labor of love that they no doubt were.

Isaac introducing his free gift monkey to the giant monkey.

Next up, inappropriate dancing by inappropriately clad youngsters. Awkward.

I think we'll stick with ballet and swimming lessons for the kids for now.

Look kids! It's a giant banana!! We've seen enough (too much) of the dancing, let's get pictures with this guy!

The highlight of the festival was this fun t-shirt.

Saturday dawned in rainy fashion. We pondered a bit, but decided that we would get wet at the pools anyway, so we might as well head out into it.

Within an hour, the weather had cleared and we were applying sunscreen again. And challenging each other to more feats of strength.

Isaac spent the morning leaping gleefully off the side of the pool into my arms.

I wasn't satisfied with our sunset pictures from the night before, so we hurried through our dinner and walked to this public beach before the sun set.

Considerably before the sun set.

Once again, Isaac chose a set of clean arms over the sandy-ness of the beach.

I wanted a redo of the flip flop picture as well.

Eli tried out his photography skills. And then leaned over and accidently plunged the lens into the sand. Oops.

We started to leave, but just as we reached the sidewalk, the sky did this.

So I snapped away.

Ali requested this one.

Goodbye Guam, we had a wonderful time.

P.S. We flew out early Sunday morning. The airport had this neat tribute to the service members who have died in combat since 9/11.

Guam, Part IV

2011-07-11T17:19:00.000+09:00

The vacation flew by in real time, but it seems to be dragging a bit in blogging time... here we go again... The Pacific Island Club - Guam had sooooo much to do. It was far and away the most fun, kid-friendly resort that we have ever stayed at. One of the activities that you could sign up for was the bungee trampoline. Everyone except for Isaac gave it a try.

Flip!

Ali.

Jason.

Headed up for a flip. I got off feeling a little nauseous. I might be too old for these things.

Back in the pool for log rolling and tug-o-war battles.

Army vs. Air Force.

Followed by hugs.

This victory went to Army!

Poolside flip-flops.

Back at the super fun little kid's pool.

Racing!

Eli elected to go to kid's club this afternoon. Ali and Isaac went round and round and round on this slide.

Until there was just no more go in them.

Wednesday, April 13th.

It was a gray, drizzly morning, perfect for sand castle making. It was killing me that we hadn't spent any time on the beach yet, so I dragged the rest of my less-than-enthusiastic family past the pools and the sea-side restuarant to the sliver of coraly sand. Eli and Ali quickly found their treasure seeking groove.

Jason and Isaac cuddled up on a beach chair.

We finally convinced Isaac to join us for a picture with our sand fortress, topped with menacing corral to keep the bad guys out.

Ali's finds.

Next stop, the gigantic swim through snorkel tank. You had to be 4 feet tall to participate. Eli was 3' 11.5" with his hair flat, so we made sure to spike it up before he got measured.

Eli and I went with a group of about ten people. Our time slot was for thirty minutes. We took our time floating through, admiring the hundreds of colorful, tropical fish. When we reached the end of the maze, I looked at the clock and saw that we still had 15 minutes left, so we went back and floated through again. This time it was just us and the fish. So fun.

Jason wanted to go too. Eli was happy to show him the ropes.

There was a walk way beside part of the tank with windows so Ali, Ike and I could spy on the guys as they paddled by.

I also took a few flower pictures while we waited.

Mommy vs. Eli log rolling.

Water slide action shots.

Eli loved it when Ali or Ike would agree to slide with him. Neither of them lasted more than a couple of rounds, however, because he wasn't quite big enough to protect them from the lumps and bumps and water submersions that threatened with each descent.

Eli and Ike feet with Jason racing to the rescue.

The most dramatic slide exit of the day.

That evening we drove to the highly recommended Chamorro night market. The market was brimming with colorful jewelry, t-shirts, fruit beverages, trinkets and tasty food.

And these cute, blond kids who seemed to be following us.

This local seems to have her eye on my man. Back off, Lady. He's taken!

But first, can we please have some of your yummy food?

My plate.

Jason's plate.

We ate on a balcony, overlooking a dance floor. A very talented band was singing country tunes, so since Jason and I couldn't abandon our children to spin around the floor, Jason tried to take Ali instead. She did not enjoy it, prefering to stand and watch.

Spring Break - Guam, Part III

2011-07-11T15:44:00.000+09:00

On the 11th we took the car that we rented with our friends and checked out some of the sights. First stop, the Atlantis submarine. On the way there Jason pointed out several of the significant spots from his Xterra triathlon. This was the swim location.

He pulled over to show us the trail leading into the jungle and a cop pulled up behind us on the shoulder. Turned out that the rental car had expired tags. Nice. The cop wasn't sure what to do with us, so he generously sent us off with just a warning to pass along to the rental car company.

The hills where the bike race was held.

Isaac made the coast guard's height requirement by the skin of his teeth and the generosity of the checker dude. Not sure why the coast guard cares. Ali is taller, but she doesn't swim any better than Ike and she would be more likely to slip out of a life jacket... As usual, we were the only white folks on a tour of Japanese sight-seers.

We took a boat out to the sub.

Descending the steep stairs into the submarine.

Peering at the fishies.

Ali thought it was cool that her pink skirt turned blueish-purple in the underwater lighting.

The fish didn't show up very well in the pictures, but they were fun to see in real life. The company had feeding stations to lure them to the area. It worked.

A chunk of glass the thickness of the port-hole glass.

At 42 meters deep. Not quite as deep as an Olympic-sized pool, standing on its end.

Sweet little submariners.

The pilot.

One of the employees made balloon art for the kids for the ride back.

Eli had a friendly, international jousting tournament.

Isaac went through an intense turtle-loving stage. We let each of the kids pick out one item from the gift shop. We thought that the natural choice for Isaac would be one of these orange (his favorite color) turtles. He hugged them, but then moved on and selected a blue fish. No amount of talking would convince him that the orangie tutu was a better choice. Since we have been home, however, there have been at least a dozen times when Isaac's big, brown eyes have welled up with tears and he has lamented, "Orangie tutu!" I guess that you are never too young to have regrets.

Ali is posing with the measurement fish back in the gift shop.

The lot of us.

Jason's paternal grandfather served in Guam during World War II. We took this picture in his honor.

Next we drove out to Talofofo falls.

We are pretty sure that the girl at the ticket booth stole money from us by pretending that Jason didn't give her all of the money for the entrance fee, but once we got past that unpleasantness, we enjoyed our visit.

It was just as hot and as humid as one would expect a lush, tropical place to be.

The second set of falls.

Bamboo. Very impressive grass. Did you know that it can grow up to 39 inches in a 24 hour period? It has taken Ali five years to grow that much.

Taking the rickety gondola back to the entrance to the park.

Isaac LOVES trains. We rustled up the operator and took a ride through a sudden rain storm just for him.

We had to lean in as far as we could to avoid the soggy foliage.

There was a herd of pigs roaming in the parking lot as we left.

We drove around the coast road on the way back to the hotel. So beautiful.

Since we had been out all day, we hadn't made it to the pool. Jason wasn't going to let that happen, so he and the kids suited up and enjoyed the nearly empty, evening pool.

The double-kid water slide. A tricky, but rewarding manuver.

There were white mats to sit or lay on when you went down the water slides to protect elbows and increase speed. Eli took full advantage of them.

This was one of many, "Mom, take a picture of this!" moments.

Our dear friends and neighbors, the H family happened to book the same hotel for the same time. We spent part of this evening together, hanging out at the pool and getting glimpses of the fire show from the cheap seats.

Isaac couldn't get enough of the pool and he kept telling Jason, "In, in!"

Part of the fire show.

More fire show.

Kisses for Daddy.

If there is anything cuter than a happy kid wrapped in a towel, I'm not sure what it is. Happy kids with their beloved daddy, maybe?

Popsicles at a picnic table = happy kids with stained shirts.

Spring Break - Guam, Part II (I Smell Zebra Breath)

2011-06-22T16:17:00.000+09:00

Breakfast on the deck. Day three.

Headed out.

Applying sunblock and donning swim gear was a major time commitment each morning and afternoon.

A family kayak excursion. Isaac was less than thrilled about having to wear a life jacket, but the rest of us had fun.

At one point Eli hooked his kayak and the kayak that Ali and I were in up to Jason's without Jason knowing. He was paddling along and Eli and I were cracking up while we kicked back and enjoyed the free ride.

Eli wanted to go under the waterfall, so Jason took him.

Tough (wet) guys.

We read about a small zoo in the area so we walked to it before dinner one evening. It was truly small, but there were a surprising number of animals stuffed into the fenced area. As we walked in the gate, Eli (who is incredibly sensitive to smells and can easily stop up his nose and breath only through his mouth, even when talking) exclaimed, "I smell zebra breath!"

"Fish" was one of Isaac's favorite sign language words. He had lots of opportunities to use it.

Feeding the rabbits.

A traditional boat on display.

The plants all had labels listing all of the maladies that they could cure. This one was good for back aches, fever, sores, joint ache and hemorrhoids. Who would have guessed?

This shark tank was Isaac's favorite spot.

Isaac signing "cat."

We couldn't pass up the hungry goats without providing several quarters worth of feed for them.

Sharing the stroller.

Super Dad pushed all three kids at least a mile, up and down hills, to dinner.

At McDonalds. A rare treat(?) for our kids.

I could have skipped my McD's salad and just had an extra scoop of this super yummy gelato.

I guess that we didn't take any day time pictures on the 10th. We left the kids in the care of our good friends from our neighborhood, the Hs, and Jason and I enjoyed a wonderful dinner at a local Brazilian BBQ resturant. Meat, meat, and more meat. With a tasty salad bar too.

The waiters brought huge skewers of meat to the table (chicken, beef, pork and seafood) and sawed off slices, which we grabbed with our tongs.

The rotisserie where the meat magic happened.

After the BBQ, we drove all around looking for ice cream, and ended up in the next parking lot over from the Brazilian restaurant. It was so much fun to get a date in on our busy family vacation!

Spring Break ~ Guam Part I

2011-06-22T15:04:00.000+09:00

We had several locations on our short list for Spring Break destinations. Australia, Saipan and Guam were the three that we spent the most time on. When Jason discovered that we could fly the whole family to Guam on frequent flier miles that the kids and I had accumulated recently, our decision was made. Half of our neighborhood made the same decision, as we discovered while talking about our vacation plans. We flew out on Thursday, the 7th of April and arrived at 1:40am on the 8th. Jason, who has spent lots of time at Seoul's airport, knew about this out-of-the-way kid's play area where we waited for our flight.

We took a hotel van to the resort, checked in, found our rooms, and collapsed into bed.

The kids were up shortly after the sun in the morning and we were all eager to get in our swimsuits and check out our view.

The green area between the balcony and the ocean is crammed with swimming pools and snorkel pools and boating canals. SO much fun.

This is a view from the waterpark of one of the towers (there were two and a half of them - we were in the half) in the Pacific Island Club - Guam resort. The towers were a little shabby looking, but the fabulous water park more than made up for the lack of a fresh coat of paint on the outside and old tiles and rock hard beds in the rooms.

I don't think that I even managed to get pictures of all of the pools. The one below was for kayaking.

This was the main pool, beneath the waterslide pool and beside the volleyball/tug-o-war/rolling barrel pool. Eli and Ali were masters of the water walk. Ali was is so light that she may have been able to skip the floaties and just walk across the water like a bug.

Eli at the end, turning around for the trip back. I could make it to the end, but never stabilized after the turn around.

Checking out the hotel's thin, but pretty strip of beach. The sand was covered in corral, so shoes were helpful.

Showing off our pedicures before the sand wore them away.

This pool had oversized animals floating all over it. Isaac spent lots of time perched on the "tuh-tuh."

Ali would make a cute island girl, don't you think?

Lots more to come...

Training for Life...

2011-05-15T18:48:00.008+09:00

and off-road triathlons. In Guam?

My good friend, D, and I work out together, simply to stay in shape and be fit. (We are both in the Army, too, so there's that requirement, but I was far above the minimum standards 20 pounds ago...) D has many quippy comments like, "I used to be a jock, now I'm an athletic supporter." His wife and Jewel train and compete in events together. Having no specific event to train for, we often say, "we're training for life." That mantra manages to get us out a few times a week, either together or solo. Additionally, I ride my bike or run to work nearly every day. It's not far, but has a substantial hill that must be overcome each way, and there are more hills that can be added to the route if I desire.

Amidst my biking and running to work, I've also been tracking Xterra off-road triathlons for some time, mostly in admiration of what the events entail, but also in appreciation for the varied terrain and conditions that come with it. A not-so-secret dream of mine was to actually do one, although I didn't think it would be this year. Nonetheless, I started swimming, too. Just in case.

Just in time.

In February, after we had already booked our tickets to Guam for spring break, a couple of dates shifted on the calendar at work, freeing up the weekend of Xterra Guam, a 1 kilometer swim, 31 kilometer mountain bike, and 8.2 kilometer trail run. A bit of e-mail inquiry to the race director and hinting to the Jewel that I was interested, particularly after surprising myself and others with a respectable 1/2 marathon time, and then....

I left for an Army training exercise that took me away from the house for a couple of weeks. I was able to come home for the weekend. On Friday night when I got home, Jewel said that if I could work out child care for the kids (she would be at a women's conference at the chapel all day Saturday), I could go to Xterra Guam. The next morning after her run with the girls, she said, "Ali will go to S's house and the boys will go to the Zs house. Go to Guam." In the few days that followed, I made reservations at the Navy Lodge, the closest hotel to the finish line, cashed in some frequent flyer miles for a round trip ticket to Guam, and registered for my first triathlon. Off road. I had exactly three weeks to train specifically. (Most training programs are 6-12 weeks.) And I had to go back to the training exercise, sans bicycle. So I swam and ran and rode the stationary bike at the gym.

In the final two weeks back home, I had two flat tires and broke a link off my chain. Additionally, I could not I remove my pedal from the crank arm to put my bike in the travel box. I also "borrowed" Jewel's mountain bike tires, as they had the best tread for the conditions -- but that can change in the matter of one rain shower on the red clay of Guam. Feeling a bit reluctant and indecisive, I pressed on and left for Guam on Thursday night, with an arrival time of 1240 am.

My mountain bike packed and ready to go.

Thanks to our good friends for letting me borrow the box!

Carb-loading in the Delta Lounge before departure
As I waited at the airport in Seoul, it began to snow.

We finally boarded our delayed flight at 9 pm and I fell asleep. When I woke up, it was nearly midnight and we were just pushing back from the gate to depart. We landed at 5:00 am. I rented the cheapest car I could find, then prayed that the bike-box would fit. It did. I backed up to trees and objects when parking, though, just to make sure nobody would steal the box.

Because there was very little open at 6:30am when I left the airport, I decided to find the bike shop where I would have one last tune-up done, and then headed to the Navy Lodge. I checked in (and they graciously waived my first night's fee since I was sleeping on an airplane on the tarmac in Seoul instead of their comfy bed), unloaded and assembled my bike and headed back to the bike shop to be there at opening time. I had e-mailed ahead with a list of parts I thought I needed, and what I thought was an appointment time. Apparently, so did everyone else. And even if they didn't, they all dropped their bikes at the shop. All for Xterra Guam. Tomorrow. I talked with the lead mechanic and told him what I needed and that I thought I had an appointment. He said they'd get to it today, but it would be close to closing before I could get my bike. And he was leaving at 11 am to go mark the bike course. Originally, I was going to swim in the ocean as a warm up and run a bit of the course, but because the bike ride is usually the biggest factor in a triathlon because it is the longest event, I asked him if he needed help and he replied affirmatively. From the bike shop, I called the race director and made arrangements to get my race packet and meet the bike shop guy to set the course. When I got my race packet, I pulled out my number and grinned. It was number 36 -- the age I had turned on my first 1/2 marathon that I decided to do the night before the event!

We spent the next 6 hours marking the 31 kilometers of the race course. Without sunscreen. (Remember, it was snowing when I left Seoul). We actually had sunscreen, but think it fell out somewhere along the route. I used mud instead. Really.

Anyway, here are some samplings of the very-fun, very-fast course. (I'll describe the course in the actual race below.)

Looking down one of the trails. That is the guy from the bike shop at the bottom on his mountain bike.

This was a descent as well. I took the picture from the bottom.

Single-track through the grass!

These ridges can be tricky. You have to have the right line and right speed, or your bike can slip to either side rather quickly.

Welcome to the jungle!

After marking the course, I picked my bike up from the shop and went back to the hotel and laid out my gear for the race. And went to the store twice more for things I kept forgetting, like batteries, gatorade and water. What racer forgets gatorade and water? I'm not sure what time I went to bed, but it was late. After all my packing and tweaking, I read this story for inspiration.

I got up early -- around 5 am for the 5:30 am showtime. The race started at 7am. I arrived early enough to get an end position for my bike in the transition area and get number 36 written onto my arms. I wanted to take some pictures of the tranisiton area and the water, knowing that I wouldn't have anyone taking pictures of me during the race. I searched and searched my bag for the camera and frustratingly decided I had left it in my room. I zoomed back to the Navy Lodge to not find my camera. I zoomed back to the race area to find it in the case under some gear in the bag I had thoroughly searched 30 minutes earlier. With camera in hand, and still enough time to get wet before swimming, I went to the water. I was away from the actual water entrance and walked to the water's edge to only immediately get a coral cut on the side of my foot. I went ahead and took a few warm up strokes, had a picture taken of me, and then got ready to swim.

This is the only photo of me at the race...but its proof I was there!

The swim was two laps of a 500 meter triangle. You can see the orange buoys in the water. In this photo, they are the long edge of the triangle, with the apex of the other end on my right.

In hopeful anticipation of this day, I swam in the ocean while I was TDY in Florida last November. I think the only thing that it prepared me for was recognizing the taste of saltwater. Atlantic and Pacific saltwater taste the same. The swim started with the director blowing a conch shell. I was expecting the thrashing and hitting of open water swim, but when you swim as slow as I do, the hitting is limited. I know I could have swam better, and can think of specific points where I should have had more focus instead of thinking "survive the swim". I was able to stand on a piece of coral once and hang onto a corner buoy once to belch out the water I had swallowed. While some people perfect their techniques while training for the swim, I flop over the edge of the pool and release the air and water I've accumulated in the previous half lap. On the last leg of the triangle course, the sun was just over the horizon and made it very difficult to see, particularly as it shone in on my fogged goggles. The safety guy in the kayak guided me through the buoys towards the exit. In an attempt to maintain some levity amidst my slow swim/float, I shouted as they announced my name on my exit from the water, "I thought you said to stay in reverse alphabetical order!" But the hard part was over, and I was the 61st swimmer out of the water.

I transitioned fairly smoothly and was on the road quickly. I was excited to ride the pavement four miles uphill, knowing my short bike rides back and forth to work were about to pay off. Having seen the route the day before, I really had a sense of where I needed to press and where I could relax. Each person in front of me became a target to pass. I reached the top of Nimitz Hill and turned into the bowl for the techincal section.

I took this photo on spring break, two weeks after the race. A hard right past that bush put all the cyclists into the off-road portion of the course.

It had rained just a little bit, but my tire selection was proving correct and I quickly remembered the trail I had driven yesterday. The course was technical for about 5 more miles, and then dumped us out onto nearly four miles of downhill pavement, where I reached 37 MPH, on a mountain bike! This road led to another technical section consisting of some jungle riding and some single track on grass below power lines. It was at the bottom of the hill just beyond this photo that I saw a rider go down and wanted to capitalize on his misfortune.

(This photo was taken from the Xterra Guam Facebook Page, and is courtesy of Rick Cruse, richcruse.com)

Unfortunately, the rain had hit on that side of the course, too, and the mud and grass made for a very slick path down the middle of very deep service vehicle tire ruts and I fell just like the guy before me. I was passed by two riders here, as starting from a fall to go up this hill was not easy. This was the last techincal section, with the final part of the bike race going down the four miles we started with going up. I entered the transition very excitedly as the 17th cyclist.

This transition (T2) was not as fluid and quick as I would have liked. I ate a banana, but should have eaten another gu. I took off after changing my shoes, but not my socks, only to be turned around to get my race number. What runner forgets his race number? About 3/4 mile from the transition, I realized I forgot my cycling gloves, too. The trail run is techinical enough that the race instructions highly recommend wearing full fingers gloves. I wasn't turning around again. The run started on the same incline as the bike, but quickly went off-road. The next hill was certainly not four miles long, but was a single-track trail to the top, then a nine-foot drop onto an adjacent road for more running. Yes, you jumped or slid straight down onto the road. The fun part of the run came after we veered off the road and under a culvert to the waterfall.

The course goes straight down this waterfall, hence the admonition for gloves.

There are three sections in a row like this.

(This photo was taken from the Xterra Guam Facebook Page, and is courtesy of Rick Cruse, richcruse.com)

I did the recommended butt slide for the first two-thirds of the waterfall, then navigated around the bottom one, as my shoes gripped so well I couldn't slide. As I entered the creek-- a waist-high with water creek-- I jokingly told a younger guy who was passing me, "I thought we did the swim first!". He said that there was almost twice as much water as last year.

(This photo was taken from the Xterra Guam Facebook Page, and is courtesy of Rick Cruse, richcruse.com)

I slogged on thru the water and decided to move as quickly as I could in water that was mid-calf and higher and run hard on the parts that actually allowed me to get most of my stride extended.

(This photo was taken from the Xterra Guam Facebook Page, and is courtesy of Rick Cruse, richcruse.com)

As the creek wound its way thru the jungle, and I weaved my way along it and over bamboo and reeds, I saw a couple of unmarked trails and then heard crackling of branches and leaves. I wondered if some people knew of some trails out of the water that cut between the bends in the creek. This served as motivation for me to keep moving as fast as I could considering the depth of the water, the warmth of the day and me not knowing how much further I had to go.

I took this picture while on spring break.

The small opening (with a log to hurdle over) is the trail that leads to the coast, which leads to the finish line.

The last half mile of the run goes right along the shoreline. It was a beautiful ending to a dream-come-true event. I crossed the finish line 16 minutes less than my initial goal; and as the 27th runner. I finished Xterra Guam 4th in my age-group and 26th overall.

While standing at the finish line, I was very satisfied with my accomplishment and my time, yet I missed my family and wondered how differently and better it would be to tackle an event like this with familiar support from family and close friends. The volunteers and participants were a friendly crew, however, and while I was alone on the trip, I was not lonely. One couple and the race director even invited me to call them upon our return for spring break if we needed anything.

I learned alot through the entire process, and thought of many things on each event that I could improve on. While swimming, a better rhythm would have kept me from struggling with forward motion. On the bike, I could have lightened my load. In my Camelbak, I had two tire tubes and inflation cans, some tools and alot of water. I figured if I didn't have it, I would have needed it. Better to be prepared, but it was heavy! For the run I would have changed my socks. All my training was in the winter in Seoul and I was very used to my wool-blend socks. They say to never try anything new on race day, so I wore wool. (I actually would have cycled with different ones too. I'm not sure anyone changed into fresh socks in T2). My feet weren't overly warm, but they, too, became very heavy after all of the water entries. I also would have altered my body temperature. It wasn't until just before entering the jungle that I remembered my jersey had a zipper on it. I had taken on alot of water, partly to cool myself off and partly to stay hydrated and energized. I felt a bit water logged towards the end of the run, both inside and out. If I would have unzipped my jersey sooner, I could have cooled my core without excessive water. The biggest thing I learned that would have affected every event was my breathing. If I had focused more on breathing and getting it into my rhythm on the swim, I would have finished sooner. I felt very good on the bike and was able to incorporate proper breathing to power through the hills and technical sections. During the run, I found my best paces when I did rythmic breathing. The terrain is too varied to concentrate on a stride, so breathing is where its at.

Now back at home, the finish line each day has three great kids and an awesome wife at the end of it, so I'm still training for life....

...and perhaps the next race that can be signed up for at the last minute!

Eli is 7!!

2011-05-05T14:44:00.000+09:00

Eli got several birthday celebrations this year. He requested monkey cupcakes for his class. Ike and Ali had to pose for the camera when I pulled it out to take pictures of the cupcakes. This isn't the posing picture, but it is a picture that shows Ali and Ike playing the morning away at home. These two can play happily for hours.

Okay, here are the posing pics.

Ike checking to make sure that he was doing it right.

And the cupcakes. Jason and I had fun staying up late to make them the night before Eli's birthday.

The new seven year old, up and ready for school.

Eli wanted this guy (Boba Fett from Lego Star Wars) for his cake this year.

Inspired by my super cake decorator friend, D, I tried marshmallow fondant for the first time this year. It was much more time consuming, and I didn't really know what I was doing, so it didn't turn out as great as I had hoped, but Eli was his usual, easy-to-please-self and he was delighted.

We had the Zs over for pizza, cake and presents.

Eli is getting to the age where he appreciates a good joke so I bought him re-lighting candles for his cake. He had never seen them before, so he and the rest of the kids got a huge (slightly frustrated) kick out of the sparky, smoky things. The cake got a good shower.

We sent Eli to take out the present garbage and followed with the camera to watch him discover his new, seven-year-old sized bike on the porch.

He was delighted to discover that it was his.

Flush with their birthday money, the kids and I made a trip to the toy store the next day for more treasures.

Stay posted for the final Eli birthday event...

February Kids

2011-05-05T11:44:00.000+09:00

Isaac may not talk a whole lot yet, but he sure knows how to communicate. Especially when he would really like a sweet "nak."

He starts with a his biggest grin...

Throws in a chin lift and a gaze into his mother's eyes.

And then he holds up the desired nak.

The routine is repeated until a "Sorry, buddy, go put it back." or a "Okay, sweet boy, you may have it." is declared. Can you guess which answer gets more play?

Eli's school celebrated Dr. Seuss week in February. I bought this hat at some point in my teaching career and it was just the thing for "crazy hat" day.

Friday of Dr. Seuss week was "Thing 1 and Thing 2" day. The kids were supposed to find a buddy and come to school dressed alike. Eli and his best school buddy, B, were determined to comply with the letter and not just the spirit of the day. B's mom and I made lots of phone calls back and forth, she purchased red socks and gathered up red shirts, red mittens and red sleep sacks, I found blue wigs and made two sets each (for the sleep sacks and the t-shirts) of Thing 1 and Thing 2 badges. The boys could hardly wait for Friday to come.

I drove Eli to school and we met Thing 2 outside the school.

Thing 2 was feeling a little self-conscious about his costume, so we never got a really great picture, but they sure looked cute.

A quick Thing 1 and Thing 2 crazy dance.

Their classmates loved the costumes.

And then it was back to work.

Denali came downstairs on day in this costume.

She spent the next 20 minutes flying from the couch.

And looking awfully cute.

Eli had to get in on some of the action as well. Minus the ballet costume and wings.

Just another month with my nak-lovin, dress-up-lovin, flying children.

Happy Birthday to Jason!

2011-05-02T16:28:00.000+09:00

Since we have been in Korea, Jason has swam, biked, run and weight-lifted himself into the best shape of his life. He decided to celebrate by running his first half-marathon on his 36th birthday. It was a Sunday, so I was planning to take the kids to the finish if the weather was decent. It wasn't, so we went to church and came home to a nice, warm house while Jason zipped through puddles and a downpour for 13.1 miles. He finished in 1 hour, 36 minutes. A great time, especially for someone who did not do any race specific training. We welcomed him home with an ice bath.

Modeling his hardware.

Fun to have a medal with your birth date on it.

Jason requested chicken garlic pizza for dinner. I was happy to find a recipe.

It was really yummy.

Ice cream pie for dessert.

I think that Eli liked it.

Isaac is working on his Chesney glare. Not bad, buddy.

Present time.

Happy Birthday, Jason!!

I Like Dalki

2011-04-29T10:22:00.000+09:00

Eli attended a birthday party at this fun kid's play area in a downtown mall. I promised Ali that we would return one of these days so that she could play too and this was that day:

Eli and Ali on a giant, bouncy bunny.

Isaac made at least twenty trips down this slide.

Ali tumbling down a squishy "snow" slope.

Isaac was dying for a ride on the "choo-choo bobo."

It did not disappoint.

Fun morning!

Girl's Day + Out!

2011-04-28T22:25:00.059+09:00

Jason and three of his best friends here meet every Friday morning for coffee and prayer/accountability. One of those mornings was partially spent dreaming up a weekend away for their wives. They excitedly presented the plan to us after our neighborhood Bible study one evening, two days before the plan was to take place.

With Jason as the primary planner, they had organized a three day, two night trip to Osan, a military base in a fun shopping town, an hour or four hours south of us, depending on traffic. We were excited. Then one friend's house flooded. She and her boys (her husband was in the states) had to move into the hotel on base. One of the girls has a three month old baby who relies solely on her for sustenance and the fact that the baby wasn't crazy about bottles was weighing heavily on everyone's minds. As I thought about the complications, I developed a modified plan. We would take over J1's hotel room (her boys were going to be spending the night at our house), shorten the trip to about 30 hours, and spend the time enjoying Seoul, kid-free. I presented the plan to the everyone and they were on board.

Friday afternoon J1dropped her boys and picked me up. We went back to the hotel and moved her stuff from a single room into a suite and then sat and chatted while we waited for D and J2 to join us. They arrived and we headed out for a late dinner, to be followed by a trip to the world-class Dragon Hill Spa, otherwise known as "the Naked Spa." We briefly considered having dinner here, just to stay with the theme, but decided to continue up the hill to Ban Thai instead.

The food, as usual, was delicious.

The company was even better.

After dinner we jumped in a taxi to head to the Naked Spa. J2 decided to check in and make sure that her baby had taken the night time bottle before we got too far away from home. The bottle had been refused. We made a U-turn. J2 ran home and fed the baby while the rest of us relaxed in the hotel and then we headed back out.

We got to the spa late, around 10 or 11pm, I think, but it didn't matter because the place is open 24 hours a day. We were all nervous giggles on the way in. We had studied the brochure that J1 had from her first visit and decided to go all out and get the "Gold Package." First stop was the reception desk where we purchased our package for the fairly reasonable cost of about $120. On the agenda was an Imperial womb cleansing, full body scrub, facial, and full body massage. We were directed to lockers where we would store our shoes and then lead to the women-only elevator to ascend to the women-only floor. I will spare you all of the details, but suffice it to say that there was lots of school girl giggling as we stripped down to the uniform (or lack thereof) of the place and headed to our first stop with our miniature spa towels and our oversized American beach towels.

The womb cleansing was just odd - think personal sauna, but with fragrant tea on the steaming rocks instead of water. It involved pink, wearable tents, special seats and steaming pots of herbs. I'll leave it at that, except to say that the attendant who provided the tents and lit the pots finally reached the end of her tolerance for us and shushed us. We did our best to suppress our giggles from that point on.

We were directed to the open shower area next and then on to the open bay scrub/massage area. Each of us was sent to our own table, attended by an older woman in black lace bra and panties. So funny. The scrub was extremely uncomfortable. The attendant coated her kitchen scrubby sponge with an exfoliating soap and then went to work as though we were coated with a thick coat of burned on food. The scrub went on and on with an occasional brief stop when I yanked my ticklish feet from her grasp.

The scrub ended with a slosh of water to clean off the soap and then it was on to the massage. I would like to say that the massage was pleasant and relaxing, but that would be a lie. It hurt and it went on and on and on. At one point the attendant (who outweighed me by a good forty pounds) was standing on my back and digging her heels into me. Korean massages typically involve lots of pounding and slapping. This massage was no exception. The facial mask was applied about half way through and it smelled and felt like a thick layer of seaweed. I was sure that the whole goopy mess would come bouncing off at some point during the abuse, but it never did. The torture eventually came to an end and I have to admit that my skin has never felt so soft. I couldn't decide whether my muscles were in better or worse shape than before I climbed onto the table, but if nothing else, they were delighted to be left alone. D and I enjoyed soaks in the three giant hot tubs (at varying temperatures) while J1 and J2 finished their massages.

It was well after midnight by the time that we finished the package deal, but we wanted to see at least some of what the other five floors had to offer, so we put on our lovely spa-issued uniforms, picked up the camera for the first time, and headed to the elevator. The floor that we went to had a huge variety of saunas and an ice room.

It was slightly oddly decorated, very classy in some places, cheesy, with neon signs in other places.

The very small door to the furnace - the hottest place available. One blogger claims that the room is 176 degrees Fahrenheit. It was take-your-breath-away roasting in there. We stayed just long enough to take a picture.

Can you tell that we are suppressing the panicky feeling that we just might be searing our lungs?

Ah, cool air again. The sign above me simply says, "High Temp."

The salt sauna. The walls and floor are made completely out of salt, which they claim has all kinds of healing properties.

We chose not to lay down in the loose salt area, but these people looked very relaxed.

We were getting sleepy and we had a full day planned for Saturday, so we decided to wrap things up with the traditional Korean spa snack - wood-fire roasted eggs. My treat.

J2 and D were a little leery. J2 is flashing the Korean sign for "no."

I will probably never crave one, but if you could get past the odd color, the taste wasn't bad.

J2 bought us a round of dippin' dots ice cream to get the smokey taste out of our mouths.

Headed back to the locker room. The sign said, "Floor 3, Sauna foe Women." The girls couldn't resist busting their best gansta moves.

So that was the Naked Spa, or at least the parts that weren't too awkward to share. It was more fun, more painful, less embarrassing and less relaxing than I thought it would be. I would love to go back, but next time I think I will skip the torture table and spend more time in the saunas and hot tubs. The entrance fee is only $9-$11 depending on when you go and there is tons to do that is included in that fee, so I am eager to spend more time exploring. The cost of this trip was completely worth it, though, because of the memorable time that I shared with three of my favorite girls.

Back out in the real world, we hailed a taxi and J2 checked back in with her husband. The baby was not sleeping well. J2 headed home for the night while the rest of us went back to the hotel and dropped into bed and slept soundly until 8:30am, I think. Bliss.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Jason built the kids a fort in the playroom to sleep in. Isaac slept in his crib and the four bigger kids crashed in the tent for the night.

And played in the fort for a good part of the next day.

Us girls met back up for breakfast/brunch downstairs in the hotel on Saturday, late morning and shopped at the on-post gift shop, made a quick goodies drop at home, hit Starbucks, then drove to the Express Bus Terminal, which boasts inexpensive clothing and shoes in an underground shopping area that goes on and on. We entered by the wonderful flower/fake flower/arts and crafts section.

And made our way through the maze of floors to find the outdoors gear/shoes/clothing section. We weren't sure where this girl was headed, but she is prepared for it, where ever it is.

The view in one direction...

...and the other direction. Each diamond sign is a new store with product spilling out into the walkways of most places.

There were bargains to be discovered, but we hurried because the baby was calling.

Back on post we did a little more shopping, during which we ran into a good, good friend, S, who had been invited along for the weekend, but declined because her husband works up north and only comes home on the weekends. She joined us for a cute chick flick at the theater and then it was back to the Dragon Hill Lodge to pack up and head home.

Our Girl's 30 hours out was a huge success. It was as fun and as bonding and as relaxing as it could possible be. Huge, huge thanks for our wonderful, thoughtful men for putting it all together and kicking us out the door.

February - Part 1

2011-03-25T08:05:00.000+09:00

Here's what we were up to in February.

Ali (who can now be found almost exclusively in poofy party dresses) made paper crowns for herself and Isaac and their toys.

Good friends in the neighborhood hosted a Superbowl party. My interest in football rivals only my interest Lake Michigan area giraffes, but I do enjoy friends and food, so we happily made cinnamon rolls and cookies and hiked the 30 second commute to their house.

You can see how focused we all were on the game.

I am often tempted to kidnap this sweet, adorable little girl, but unfortunately, her parents know exactly where I live so I don't think it would last.

Titus the dog with a friend. Titus made the short list of three dogs that Eli likes.

Okay, the party's over.

Eli had to make a valentine box for class. He and Jason dreamed this one up. It was, reportedly, the coolest one in the classroom.

Mom always made my siblings and I sugar cookies decorated with the names of our classmates for Valentine's day. I am determined to keep the tradition going. Mom had to tackle "Susitna" and "Genesis" every year, but my class had nothing on the "Magdelena," "Gwyndolyn" and many, many other three and four syllable names in Eli's class.

For the super yummy recipe, go here.

Isaac Update

2011-03-24T22:13:00.000+09:00

I'm back with news... I was right. But, you should have all assumed that. ;) I (we) are also very hopeful and very encouraged and attacking this apraxia beast with everything we have. At Isaac's screening, the day after the last post, H, the very impressive SLP, spent over an hour with Isaac and me, talking about my concerns and interacting with Isaac. She agreed with me then that it sounded like apraxia, but she wasn't willing to write it down until after formal testing. Yesterday H and the team Occupational Therapist (OT) spent an hour and a half assessing Isaac's cognitive, general communication, social-adaptive, and motor skills. He was very reluctant to interact with them for the first 45 minutes, but he did enough to determine (as I could have told them) that he is average or above average in every area except for communication, where he drops off the chart. The SLP came back this morning for specific expressive and receptive language testing. Again, Isaac was very slow to warm up to the tasks, but still came out in the average range for receptive language and waaaaay below average for expressive language.

So, where does the "hopeful" and "encouraged" come in? In the two weeks since I last posted, Isaac's vocabulary has grown from 30 to 50 words, plus more than a dozen new signs and lots and lots of two and three word phrases. So, thirty words in his first 120 weeks of life - lots of prayer and laser focus on speech therapy - 30 new oral and signed words in 2 weeks. Hmmm... I think we can call that a miracle.

That said, he is still far, far behind the typical two and a half year old, so we still have lots of work and prayer ahead of us. The testing is done now and the SLP informed me this evening that Isaac will qualify for services. Since the day that I made the first phone call, H has been bringing supplies and materials by the house and today when I showed her the therapy material that we purchased, she offered to make copies for us and drop her laminator by the house tomorrow for me to use. I think she's on board!!

Speaking of materials... I have been scouring ebay for used therapy materials and have found several very helpful books. I also purchased and devoured a textbook on Childhood Apraxia of Speech and was able to get continuing education credit by taking a test on the material. I remembered seeing some sign language kid's DVDs at our library back when I wasn't very interested in sign language. When I went back last week they were there and very, very well done, but only six of the series (Signing Time) were available, so I found a deeply discounted (but still rather expensive) complete set (33 DVDs!) on ebay and snagged it. We have been watching several DVDs a week and all of us have picked up dozens of signs. Eli and Ali, especially, are soaking them in and I often find Ali signing to Isaac. I really should know basic sign language as a SLP and these fun videos have been a very easy way for our family to learn together. It is so interesting to watch Isaac because he seems to learn the sign and use it spontaneously one day, and then the next day he will often use the word with the sign. Exactly what we were hoping would happen. For those hard to pronounce words, like "orange" and "rainbow," he now has signs that can tide him over while he learns to pronounce the more difficult sounds and sound combinations.

Formal therapy with H should start in the next week or two. Mommy (and Daddy and Eli and Ali) therapy is going strong. Please continue to keep us in your prayers. The next year and a half are so critical for language development, so we need to maximize every opportunity for learning. I have no doubt that it will seem exhausting and overwhelming at times for each of us in the years ahead, so please pray for patient persistence.

I have been writing down each new word and phrase as they come out of Isaac's mouth or hands. The last two on my list for today are "Hello Dada" (spoken to Jason over the phone) and "Night-night Mama" spoken with the sweetest, most triumphant little grin as I cuddled our precious boy before tucking him in for the night.

Night-night to all of you. Thanks for checking in on us.

Alvis Adventures in Apraxia

2011-03-07T00:13:00.000+09:00

From the time that Isaac was born, he has been a quiet little man. Although he was a good, well-coordinated eater, he has missed every single language milestone from babbling to first words, to combining words. He should have been babbling at six months, but was only producing vowel sounds. He should have had ten words by a year old, he had six or seven and he didn't use them often. I pointed out his delays at every well baby check up, but the doctors were never concerned and even laughed that he was in good hands when I told them that I was a Speech-Language Pathologist.

Isaac's prenatal time was complicated by an extremely rare blood incompatibility issue (Anti-E) between my blood and his that threatened to keep oxygen from his developing brain. I was monitored monthly from almost the beginning, including one $900, super intensive brain ultrasound to check for proper oxygen levels. Following that ultrasound (which they said was reassuring), because my titer levels (the number that they used to monitor (although it is not always trustworthy) my blood reaction against his blood) stayed in the just-shy-of-dangerous levels, they did less intensive ultrasounds.

Isaac was born after a short labor, during which I was not allowed to get off of the bed because his heartrate kept increasing, with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and, further down, tied in a complete knot. His initial newborn APGAR score was a 5 (I believe), but it had come up to 9 within five minutes. He was blue when he came out and the doctor worked on him, rubbing for several tense minutes before she handed him over. At that point, however, he nursed well and was treated like a perfectly normal baby from there on out. We were released from the hospital after 24 hours. At home, Isaac quickly became jaundiced and I had to take him in for torturous blood draws from his tiny feet every day (twice on day, due to a mistake from the local hospital (for which I had very low regard)) for a week before they stabilized. He never required treatment for the jaundice other than laying him down for naps in a sunbeam for a couple of weeks.

When I reviewed my hospital records, I discovered that the hospital where I delivered had failed to administer the newborn hearing screening. I took him to the local hospital when he was a day or two old and he passed the one that they gave him.

When Isaac turned two and only had about ten or fifteen words, I started to become concerned. When I realized that he wasn't using all of his vowels (normally the first sounds to come), my concern grew. He has always found ways to communicate his needs through pointing, or leading, or responding to "yes" or "no," questions, and his frustration level was (and is) still pretty low, so I kept hoping that he was just a late-talker that he would have a language explosion over the course of a couple of weeks and suddenly become an effective communicator.

As a Speech-Language Pathologist, I felt like I was doing all that I could to support his language development. We read a lot in our family and I was teaching him the same ways that I had taught Eli (who was speaking in complete, complex sentences when he turned two) and Ali, who learned language right on track for her age. This time it wasn't working.

When I realized, about three weeks ago, that Isaac was unable or unwilling to imitate, my concern increased exponentially. Two intense sessions with primary reinforcers (mini-chocolate chips) overcame the imitation blockage and I thought that we would be well on our way to learning language.

We have averaged two to four 10 minutes speech sessions a day over the past week and Isaac will readily repeat single sounds. If we are working on "cup," he can produce a clear /c/ /u/ /p/. We move to /cu/ /p/ and he usually does okay. When he tries to blend all three sounds, he will occasionally get it correct, but more often it will come out with missing, or distorted sounds instead, for example, /muk/. The same is true of his spontaneous speech. The other day he pointed to a boat in a book and said, /boat/. I was delighted and asked, "What is it?" He cautiously (I believe that he is well aware of his errors) attempted the word again and it came out /mop/.

He desperately needed a word to request to be held, so we worked for two weeks on "up." A rough estimate is that it took 200 times of repeating the word and being prompted for the word, "Use a word, Isaac, what do you want?" while he stood with his arms outstretched to me, before he was able to come up with it on his own. He still has to stop and think before it comes out. The other word that we have worked and worked on is /hep/ for "help." He still does not use it spontaneously and will sometimes use "up" when what he means is "help."

Part of my denial that Isaac had an issue that needed outside help was that he understands perfectly. I gave him a Preschool Language Test - 3rd Edition in January. It is a pretty broad, basic test, but he came out in the 95th percentile (above 94 out of 100 children his age) for how well he understood language. I used the test result to convince myself that a language burst was just around the corner. I finally completed the Expressive Language portion of the test two days ago. He scored in the 16th percentile. The 16th percentile makes him borderline for whether he would qualify for services (if this was the only test given), so even that wasn't terribly alarming, but as I researched what I was beginning to suspect, more and more, I came up with lists that described Isaac's speech very accurately, my heart began to sink. It had to be apraxia.

I always breath a huge sigh of relief when our babies are born with all parts in place. I let out another big sigh when they reach one without dying of SIDS or displaying any autistic characteristics. Apraxia, while not always a life-long sentence, is on the short list of very, very difficult conditions that SLPs face. As hard as it is for the therapist, the family is faced with hours and hours (if it is done right) of therapy and years of limited, labored communication. And the precious child's thoughts and ideas are locked behind a tongue and lips that are somehow unable to translate the message from the brain into an articulate sentence, phrase, or even, at the beginning, a word.

I am confident in my diagnosis, but I have very little experience with working with children with apraxia and no significant experience working with children under three in a therapy setting. My friend has been working for months with the early intervention SLP here on post for her two-year-old. He has made incredible progress (with a completely different diagnosis). Throughout the process she asked me lots of questions and I have been happy to answer them. I knew that the early intervention team was available, but she had mixed results with them initially and I kept thinking that I could do this myself. Narrowing down the problem to apraxia was my wake-up call. I made the phone call on Friday morning. Normally a secretary would answer the phone, take down my contact information and my concerns and schedule a screening. I'm not sure how the screenings normally happen, but I'm pretty sure that there is no guarantee that a qualified Speech-Language person would be involved. Instead... God arranged that my phone call would be answered by the best (according to my friend who has worked with the team) SLP in the office. When I told her my concerns she took them very seriously, made an appointment for Monday morning and promised to come armed with appropriate testing materials.

So, here were are, 10 hours from the first of what will most likely be years and years of meetings. My stomach is in knots. I desperately want the SLP to dismiss my concerns as completely unrelated to an issue as severe as apraxia, but I am sure that she won't and that even if she did, I would argue and advocate with everything in me to get services for my child. Hating, HATING that he needs them, but grateful that they are there. Fearful of the pain and frustration of the future, but confident that our God will supply all of our needs, according to his glorious riches and that he has a plan for our lives, made so evident by the fact that he gave Isaac a mommy who studied her brains out for six years so that she would be qualified to help him.

And you can bet that the studying that I did before will pale in comparison to what is ahead. I have Continuing Education courses and specific therapy materials in shopping baskets all over the Internet. I am making myself wait until after our meeting tomorrow to hit, "buy," but after that, if you have a question about apraxia, I will be your girl. And when our baby needs an advocate, we will gently, persistently, push to get him what he needs.

The most beautiful outcome of this diagnosis, so far, is that we have begun to use simple sign language with Isaac. He has been delighted to imitate a large handful of words. We had worked on "moon" and "stars" and "good night," among others before bed last night. Just before I put him to bed, I did the signs, one at a time, for "I" "love" "you." He repeated the signs for "I" and "love" and approximated the words. I pointed at him and finished up with "you." He pointed back at me, looked into my eyes and said, "Mama." We both grinned and grinned as I signed and said, over and over, "I love you!" and he echoed back, "I love mama." And so we begin the long road to communication with one of the most important phrases in the world already established.

I will post again as I get more information. We covet your prayers as we move forward.